How to go from Extract to AG for < $10.00

[Thirsty Boy]

I can see that a conical bag might do the trick if it works as you imagine it might. But it would leave a bit of gathered or folded material on the bottom of the kettle - this "might" be a bad thing if you are trying to add heat to the kettle.

If you think a cone shape would be stronger or easier to sew, then it might be worth a shot, otherwise -- well, the sleeping bag stuff sack design works perfectly.

I dont know about the bag within the bag thing though.... maybe.

My experience and opinion is that the bag shouldn't interfere at all with the mash. The grain should behave as though the bag wasn't there at all. As I have said a couple of times before - your pot should fit inside your bag, if it doesn't, then I think your bag is too small.

As far as being easy/hard to lift out - if you don't try to "hurry" the lift, then you should never be lifting more than 10kg or so, and you only have to hold it up for a little while. Honestly, I am only average/small guy (5'9) and I have lifted and held for draining, a BIAB from a 5.5G batch (about 5kg dry) with one hand, just to prove that I could. If a normal healthy man or woman has trouble with the lifting of a BIAB bag... then my suspicion is that they have used the wrong material or are doing something else wrong. Its just not that heavy.

SBL .. I will PM you the links to the No-Chill info, although I may make a more comprehensive post on the topic soon if no one else does.

Thirsty

[ericm]

I normally batch sparge with a cooler, but thought it would be fun to try this this weekend, so I gave it a shot with a pale ale and came out with 86% efficiency, which is better than I get on average batch sparging... I triple-crushed the grain, which is probably a big part of that - it's got me thinking I should crush more for batch sparges as well..

anyway, it was a fun process, and relatively quick and easy - I'll be doing it again. thanks for starting this thread!

[SuperflyMD]

OK, I'm about ready to make the plunge. I bought the Voile (high twist polyester in the curtain section at Lowes) and my mother-in-law is sewing it into a bag.

I need to decide on a recipe (I'm partial to malty darker beers) and preferably import it into BeerSmith from a known source, if that's possible.

I need to buy the ingredients, probably from Austin Homebrew Supply.

I need to decide which to do next: this BIAB, or an extract lager for my newly converted kegerator. What is the better "next step" from extract brewing with specialty grains?

Last question: is my 30 qt SS brewpot large enough for this?

[Thirsty Boy]

ericm - nice work, sounds like you did it easily. Hope that the beer turns out to be good enough to match with your smooth brewday. Nice to see someone trying it just out of a sense of adventure.

SuperflyMD - your 30qt pot is really too small. You will be "able" to do an AG BIAB in it, but it will be matter of just sqqueaking in. And nothing big or strong.

For BIAB - you need to calculate whether everything will fit in the pot. All your grain and ALL your water.

So you have to work backwards from your desired post boil volume. I will give example calculations for a brew and you can slot in your own variables to see how it will go in your pot. You say a lager?? OK lets look at a Pilsner using the bohemian pilsner recipe from B3's database. Altered for about 75% efficiency & an OG of 1.050. They have a pro-mash recipe file, I dont know about beer smith.

Its

Volume 20.8L

4kg Pilsner Malt
230g crystal 15
230g Cara Pils dextrin

56g of Saaz at each of 60, 10 & 1 minute to about 42IBU

so you finish with 20.8 in the kettle right - now add back your water losses to get your total water needed.
+15% boil off for 60min = 23.13L
+ absorption to grain, say 2.5kg (BIAB absorbs about 0.5-0.75L per kg of grain) = 25.63

So you start with 25.63L of water & 4.46kg of grain.. will it fit in the pot??

each kg of grain takes up about 0.66L of space once its mixed in - so 4.46*.66= 2.95

so your total mash volume is 2.95 + 25.63 = 28.6L which equals 30.2 quarts. So... no it wont fit.

You could make a slightly smaller batch, or leave a little of the water out. I'd leave a gallon of the water out and add it back later.

The simplest way is to just add it back after you remove the bag. This will cost you a little bit of efficiency. Maybe yopu will get 70 instead of 75. Perhaps not even that muh difference.

If you can work out a way to do it - pour the water over the bag and squeeze it out again. This will act like a bit of a sparge, it will allow you to brew the brew and might even get you a point or two of efficiency extra ... but you have to hav some way of heating the extra water, and some way to rinse the bag. It could be as simple as a saucepan and a bucket... but its all extra bits and takes away from the point of using BIAB in the first place.

You really need a 40L pot (which is 42 and a bit quarts) to brew 5G batches with BIAB and not be too limited with your grain bills - even 40L will necessitate a bit of mucking about with higher OG beers.\

A 50L pot will brew you 5G of anything you care to mention and although they are a bit bigger in the US - here in Australia, sankey kegs are 50L. Which is kinda handy if your scruples are less than sky high.

You will "squeak" a brew out of your 30qt pot ... but you might be better going with a "mostly" grain recipe. Brew a 4G recipe of AG beer and one gallon of extract... you will be lucky to tell the difference and it will all fit in your pot if you combine them after the bag is pulled out.

No rules - make it up as you go along and let us know how it worked out.

Cheers

TB

Oh - I nearly forgot. My vote is to go with the extract lager. Dont change too many things at once. Brew a beer the way you are used to doing it. Try out your keggerator and work out how the whole kegging thing happens (assuming you are new to kegs this is...). Then have a go at All Grain. If you do both at once you wont know which process to credit with the improvement or blame for the faults.

[SuperflyMD]

Thanks TB

[SouthernBrewlady]

Well, went to walmart tody and looked for that voile. I found something that was about the perfect weave -at least in my mind. Then I noticed it said "dry clean only". So much for that plan. Should it be about like a hop bag or a little looser. I'll keep checking around. But not sure really what I'm looking for. I did decide not to try the cone thing. I'll just do it the original way. Nothin like the real thing baby!

[SuperflyMD]

My mother-in-law sewed a bag for my current stockpot (before I found out it needed more volume). As you can see, the bag has tabs to run a rope through that I hope will support the weight better than the voile stitched to itself.



I've been looking for a way to both lift it and keep the bag open. I found a one-way ratcheting pulley with two hooks at Lowes for about 15 bucks. I added a moving pulley for another $3, just cuz I wanted to.



The bag will be held open with an 18" wooden hoop I got at Michael's that my wife said is used for some kind of cross-stitch. The frame is really light, but it won't take much of the weight, just prop open the mouth for adding grain or sparge water.



The plan is to keep the frame at the level of the pot's lip to maximize the amount of bag down in the pot. I should be able to lift and drain very slowly, as well as sparging with the additional water that I apparently won't be able to fit in the pot with the grain.



I think I'll start with a mini-mash to get the process down, then try an all grain batch. Now I need to order a recipe kit.

[Thirsty Boy]

That looks like just about an ideal set-up.

Your bag even looks to be plenty big enough to upsize your pot quite a bit before you need to go for another bag.

I dont like teh "tabs" personally, I think they concentrate the weight into too small an area - I prefer to "choke" the bag material itself with a few loops of cord - thus the weight is borne by the fabric itself, not any stitching.

BUT... quite a few people use bags almost identical to yours and they manage to do up to 10G+ batches - so I am most likely being to fussy.

nice innovation to get around your volume limitation.

Very nice set-up indeed

It will brew fine beer

TB